LucidDreamer

Ok thanks for the information. The thing is, the aim of my research is to find bifenthrin's effect on nNOS expression in NGF-differentiated PC-12 cells. The reason for nerve growth factor is to neuronally differentiate the PC-12 cells and simulate a developing nervous system. I am trying to see if bifenthrin has the potential to induce neurotoxicity by observing its effect on the developing nervous system. If you are not aware, bifenthrin is a pyrethroid, a class of insecticides that are deemed to be "non-neurotoxic" to humans yet are selectively toxic to insects. This is why they now supplant the older insecticides (ie organochlorines, organophosphates, and carbamates). Remember, the older insecticides are deadly to humans and protests have been made to rid of them. Got any feedback on my project?

You should first observe the effects of bifenthrin on individual cells, and then you should observe the effects of bifenthrin on animals (just in case you weren't already aware).

I just need to know what increase and decrease in gene expression is. I think it correlates to the production of the enzyme but im not really sure. You think you can clarify this?

In order for a cell to create an enzyme it must transcribe DNA into mRNA and then translate mRNA into enzymes. Increased gene expression means that more DNA, which are the genes, is transcribed into mRNA. Since these mRNA's are often used to make enzymes, increased gene expression leads to more enzymes.

The confusion comes from the fact that sometimes mRNA is not transcribed into protein (enzymes) and it is used for other purposes. Furthermore, sometimes the enzymes that are made from mRNA are used to regulate (increase the activity or decrease) other enzymes. But in general, the increase of the expression of a particular gene means the increase of expression of a particular enzyme.

I would look up transcription (eukaryotic) on wikipedia or google.

I am not an engineer so I am not really qualified to give you a good answer, but I will give a uninformed one in case by some chance it might help. I imagine that you can take two flexible tubes and wrap them around each other like a helix. You could then begin cutting away portions of the points where they connect, while making a tight seal of course. The more you cut away the less the water traveling inside would keep its helix shape.

You could also create a model of a double helix, sort of like when they make a model of a persons face with rubber or wax. The water traveling inside the model would somewhat resemble the original double helix structure.

To expand on Roy's comment: the illusion of time is no different than the illusion of the tree. What we see and think about being a tree is not the tree, but the tree exists. It was once said that the map is not the territory, which is true. Our perception of time and a tree is merely a mental fabrication that represents a real thing, however inaccurately.

I have read from a few sources that Heisenbergs (sp?) Uncertainty Principle is not a product of inadequate instrumentation, but rather a natural property of the particle. I have also read that particles don't exist as discrete separate units, but rather they only have an identity in relation to the other particles and the method of measurement. I have also read that it’s useful to view particles as processes instead of actual particles with mass. How do know these things to be true? What experiments, equations, and conceptions are important in understanding this?

Does brighter light move at a faster pace than dimmer, less powerful light??

No. If both the dim light and the bright light are traveling through the same medium then they will travel at the same speed. Light is made of "particles" called photons. Bright lights have more photons than dim lights, or at least more photons reach the person observing the two lights. Bright and dim are determined by intensity, which is the amount of photons.

There is an interesting paradigm that views the human mind as three evolutionary layers. The first mind is the reptilian mind that is purely instinctual; it controls basic instinctual behaviors, such as sexual drive. The second layer is the mammalian mind, which contains the sections of the brain that creates emotions; this layer creates feelings like love and hate. The last layer is the human mind, which is the part that gives use consciousness, logic, and the ability to use complex tools. The three layers together create a human mind with all of the behaviors and mental processes that we observe. The three layers work relatively well together and create a creature with a mind that has allowed it to spread all over the world. Sometimes, however, two or more of the three layers are at odds with one another because they each have their own programmed agenda.

..then this is still an olfactory illusion because its not garuanteed to lead to lunch...

I see your point of view. Since the smell is no longer tied to the original source that had evolutionary significance, then it might be considered an illusion. I was thinking of illusion in the sense that the smell never had any evolutionary significance.

While we are on the subject of olfactory illusions/hallucinations, does anyone ever percieve smells in their dreams?

I remember dreams where I incorporated an earlier memory of a smell into the dream, but never a dream where I percieved a new smell.

I think the problem with observing red blood cells in hypotonic solutions where they have burst open is that they become difficult to see. The cells that have not burst should become swollen and loose their biconcave shape. The cells that have broken open are called ghosts and they should appear more transparent, and thus harder to see. If you could prepare a slide where you view a particular section at normal body salt levels and then you could view the same section with a hypotonic solution then I think the difference would be more apparent. But I have never done this so...

This is how I like to think about it: A photon is not a particle. A photon is not a wave. A photon is a photon. We just like to compare it other things that we can understand intuitively, like a moving billiard ball or the waves on the surface of water. Moving objects like billiard balls have momentum, so when they strike another object they transfer energy. They also happen to have mass. We can observe billiard balls with our own eyes and can understand their interactions with other objects intuitively.

Photons are "tiny" and move at great speeds so we never directly observe their movements with our eyes, and so we have trouble understanding their interactions with other objects intuitively. When we observe them transferring their energy to other objects by observing them with scientific instrumentation, we like to compare them to something we understand, such as a billiard ball that has mass. But it's not the mass that gives the object the ability to transfer energy; it's the momentum, which we know from the mathematical equations that we have developed, not an intuitive understanding.

Mathematical equations are constructs used to describe the observed and derived relationships of things. These equations describe the relationship in its purist form. Sometimes the information used to create the equations is gathered from scientific instruments that allow us to glimpse the universe in a way that we could never see with out natural senses so the relationships they describe are hard to understand.

Our bodies, and nature around us, have great mass compared to atomic particles and travel very slowly relative to light. Our senses have evolved to observe this limited part of reality and our brains have evolved to process it. Our brains have not had to deal with information gathered at the atomic level or with things traveling at the speed of light. Therefore when we encounter phenomena that occur at levels outside are normal reality we have trouble understanding them. Our modern instrumentation may help us observe these phenomena and we can use mathematics to record the relationships, but that does not mean that we can understand it intuitively. Momentum is a creature of mathematical equations and just because something like moving billiard balls, which we can understand and has mass like we do, has momentum, it doesn't mean that everything with momentum has to have mass as well.

Not sure if that helps at all.

luciddreamer' date='

 

problem with taht is that the government can't force all car manufacturers to produce car's with hybrid engines in them. Only way for that to happen is if the oil price rises to the point where it becomes cheaper to spend the extra money upfront on a hybrid vehicle, and save money on gas.[/quote']

True, I was thinking along the lines of incentives for buying fuel-economy cars and extra taxes on non-work SUVs and trucks. I was also thinking about non-governmental social initiatives started by people like us. Like you said though, rising oil prices have already resulted in a movement towards buying more fuel-efficient cars—capitalism at its finest.

 

The government should definitely be working on building more public transportation though.

One problem with taking antibiotics over a long period of time is that antibiotics interfere with the balance of beneficial bacteria colonies in the intestines. It can sometimes lead to health problems, such as overgrowths of yeast colonies or harmful bacteria in the gut.

There are numerous methods of radiometric dating' date=' all with various limitations. But all also overlap to some degree, and thus can be used to calibrate one another.

[/quote']

Exactly, the reason that scientist use radiometric dating is not the reliability of any one method of radiometric dating, but rather the agreement of many separate methods of radiometric dating plus other forms of dating. Creationists pretend that its circular reasoning to use radiometric dating to date strata and then use strata to test the reliability of radiometric dating, but the truth is that its good science to use several methods to test and calibrate one another.

Our sense of smell is supposed to provide information about substances that smell. Nice smells should imply that perhaps something is good to eat' date=' sweet smells for sugary substances, etc. nasty smells should tell us to avoid things in our environment - rotten flesh, faeces , etc. So there should be a link between the smell of a substance and its chemical properties. Esters and other aromatic substances are olfactory illusions because they break this link.

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Maybe esters are not really olfactory illusions. Perhaps they smell pleasant for other reasons than the ability to eat substances that have their sense of smell. It could be that esters smell good to us because some edible plants produce similar smells during spring, but the edible portions of the plant are not the parts producing the smell. Maybe the pleasant smells have to do with cleanliness and its link to good health, and thus good genetic quality. I wonder if chimpanzees find the smell of esters pleasant.

What attributes does a good forum post have? Is it concise? Does good grammar and spelling matter? Is writing style most important? Are short paragraphs better than long ones? etc...

Let's imagine that there will be a big crunch at some point in the future and the universe will collapse. Then let's assume that another big bang will occur and the process will repeat itself many times. Will the amount of usable energy (non-heat) be conserved or will it be reduced after each cycle?

Can you conduct scientific research over the internet and have it published in a peer-reviewed journal? I was thinking about a psychology research project that I have always wanted to do involving IQ, and then I thought about how interesting it would be if it could be done over the internet. Does anybody know about other research that has been done over the internet and published? Does anybody know anything about how internet research might be done?

http://print.google.com/print?id=o0c78yak-b4C&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=south+america+catalog+insect&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Flr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dsouth%2Bamerica%2Bcatalog%2Binsect%2B%26btnG%3DSearch&sig=aY209SPRecDYQnefcrZM48SoA74

I did a quick search and this was all that I found. When I need to find a specific kind of book like this I will often enlist several experts. I will call a couple of librarians and some book store clerks and tell them what I am looking for. One of them is bound to turn up with something.

Same applied for evolutionists. Very few know what they're talking about. So you agree with me that one shouldn't use google for scientific information? like in my field, engineering, i've already had all the benifits from ieee as its member. Why bother to do googling?

Well, if you are looking for the definition for mitochondria or the distance from the sun to the earth, then it takes 15 seconds to google it, which is quite useful. Nobody makes up their minds about an important subject like evolution/creationism from a single search anyways.

Google has become the most valuable information resource for me, for science topics or otherwise. I will often find exactly what I need after my first query, on the very first page. Sometimes I don't even need to actually go to the sites to get my answer because it tells me the answer with the selected text from one of the pages. I have found the information on google very reliable, which I have often cross-checked in science forums and textbooks. Often google will pull up pubmed abstracts, another peer-reviewed journal, or university professor sites when I look for science topics. I have become so use to using google and the internet that I automatically filter out sites that seem unreliable without thinking about it. If you factor in the advanced search options like google scholar or ability to search specific domains, google is the best source of information on the planet for most subjects, except the very specific, archaic, or information in obscure foreign languages.

I read somewhere that a wasp displays a certain amount of intelligence when it becomes lost and it is unable to find its nest. It will use an every increasing spiral pattern until it comes across a landmark that it recognizes and then it will use other methods to find its way back. I think you could emulate this phenomenon with an AI program. The user, or an automated function, could place the wasp in a random location on a map and the wasp will use its intelligence to find its way back. It would use landmarks and overcome barriers along the way.

As an alternative, the wasp could begin looking for its nest by moving about randomly. After each attempt to find its nest it learns to change its searching method so that it finds the nest faster the next time. It would be my guess that eventually the wasp would use the spiral pattern to find its nest. You would be reenacting the evolution of the homing intelligence of the wasp.

I also don't understand that if it is duplicative and unnecessary, how does it limit Bush?

Yes, that doesn't make any sense, does it? If it is duplicative then it cannot limit his power any more than the original law.

What is considered torture? Is psychological manipulation torture? Can you torture a person without physically harming them? Can you torture a person without physically harming them or humiliating them? Is sleep deprivation torture? Is striping people and making them walk around in a semi-public area torture? Is it torture to feed people, but feed them terribly tasting gruel and offer them a steak if they open up? Is it torture to completely isolate people for long periods so that their only contact is with an interviewer? Is drugging people torture? What is torture and what isn't torture?

I think that a forum could be a useful tool for communication at work.

Advantages:

1. Its an excellent means for many people to discuss an issue, compared to email where it is quite difficult for several people to coordinate a meaningful discussion.
    
   
2. Everything that is said is permanent and easily accessed. In a meeting, things that are said are often forgotten or misremembered.
    
   
3. It is inexpensive to set up and manage a forum.
    
   
4. A forum is easily accessed and it's user-friendly.
    
   
5. A forum gives people the freedom to think about ideas and search for more information before responding to questions or issues raised by another member. In a meeting, questions often go unanswered or are poorly answered because everybody must come up with answers on the fly.
    
   
6. A forum allows people to respond on their own time. People are not required to attend a long meeting at inconvenient times.
    
   
7. A forum would allow people to only spend time on issues and projects that concern them, instead of requiring people to attend long meetings when "they only have one thing to say."
   

Disadvantages:

1. A lot of the ability to communicate is lost on a forum, compared to a face-to-face meeting. Things that are said can be more easily misinterpreted.
    
   
2. People are not present face-to-face to answer questions at a set time.
    
   
3. When you have somebody in the room with you it is difficult for them to ignore or avoid you. If something is going badly, it may take longer to know about it.
    
   
4. There could be additional security issues associated with a forum, depending on how it's set up.
    
   
5. A new communication medium requires time and effort to implement and get people use to using it.